SERMONS

January

21 Dec January

Worship Services

Winter Storm Updates/Closings: In the case of extremely bad weather Sunday Worship Service may be cancelled. A cancellation decision will be made usually late Saturday afternoon (7AM on Sunday morning at the latest) and conveyed to media outlets, TV Channels 10 & 12, and radio stations WJAR, WHJJ, WPRI, WWBB, and WSNE. You can check the website: ribroadcasters.com for church and other closings, as well as parking bans.The church phone message will also contain information if the worship service is cancelled: 401-846-0643. Even if the service is not canceled, congregation members should make the decision to travel and find parking that is best for them and their mobility and health condition. We cannot guarantee that all areas on the church property will be free of ice/snow.

Sunday, January 6: Rev. William Zelazny

Repackaging Life: Maybe or Maybe Not

We chose the path that feels most right for us. We either jettison roles and tasks that define us because they are no longer working or we decide to keep them because they work just fine. Sometimes it feels right to repackage our life so it makes more sense, and sometimes it is OK to just “keep on keeping on”. On this first Sunday of a new year, Bill will reflect on options we have for our life.

Sunday, January 13:Rev. Jeannette Bessinger

What if our failure to heal was just a trick of the Light?

In this era of cascading health epidemics, we are looking for healing in greater and greater numbers. By dividing up our issues according to “body”, “mind” or “spirit”, however, we can find ourselves running out of rope with a medical doctor when our physical pain crosses into the emotional realm, or with a mental health professional when psychological challenges seem tied to eating certain foods. By shifting our current divided, mechanistic model of self to one of an interconnected “network”, we are one step closer to recognizing in ourselves the unalterable Flow that sources it all.

Sunday, January 20: Rev. Bill Zelazny

The Radical Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King is known for his civil rights work, but near in the late ‘60s he took on many issues that made Northern “white folk” who had supported his desegregation work uncomfortable because they hit close to home. On this MLK Sunday Bill will talk about King’s challenge to the social issues of the time in addition to his fight against racism and where we are as a society a half century after his death.

Sunday, January 27: Rev. James Ishmael Ford

Telling Stories CANCELLED

Reverend Ford believes that what makes us interesting, and perhaps unique among animals, is how we tell stories. They help shape reality for us and often carry great meaning. Today, he will retell a story from the Canadian writer A. S. Bayatt and in thinking about it open possibilities for us as religious liberals making our own way in the world.

The Reverend James Ishmael Ford is a UU minister, a Zen priest, an author of six books, and a retreat leader. He is minister-emeritus of the First Unitarian Church in Providence. Today he lives in Southern California with his spouse Jan Seymour-Ford and guides the Empty Moon Zen Network. His most recent book is “An Introduction to Zen Koans: Learning the Language of Dragons.”